Oncotarget

Clinical Research Papers:

Combined analysis of circulating epithelial cells and serum thyroglobulin for distinguishing disease status of the patients with papillary thyroid carcinoma

Hung-Chih Lin, Miaw-Jene Liou, Hsung-Ling Hsu, Jason Chia-Hsun Hsieh, Yi-An Chen, Ching-Ping Tseng and Jen-Der Lin _

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Oncotarget. 2016; 7:17242-17253. https://doi.org/10.18632/oncotarget.6587

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Abstract

Hung-Chih Lin1, Miaw-Jene Liou2, Hsung-Ling Hsu3, Jason Chia-Hsun Hsieh4,5, Yi-An Chen3, Ching-Ping Tseng1,3,6,7 and Jen-Der Lin2

1 Graduate Institute of Biomedical Science, College of Medicine, Chang Gung University, Taoyuan, Taiwan, ROC

2 Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism, Department of Internal Medicine, Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, Taoyuan, Taiwan, ROC

3 Department of Medical Biotechnology and Laboratory Science, College of Medicine, Chang Gung University, Taoyuan, Taiwan, ROC

4 Division of Hematology-Oncology, Department of Internal Medicine, Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, Taoyuan, Taiwan, ROC

5 Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering, Chang Gung University, Taoyuan, Taiwan, ROC

6 Molecular Medicine Research Center, Chang Gung University, Taoyuan, Taiwan, ROC

7 Department of Laboratory Medicine, Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, Taoyuan, Taiwan, ROC

Correspondence to:

Jen-Der Lin, email:

Ching-Ping Tseng, email:

Keywords: papillary thyroid carcinoma, thyroid cancer, thyroglobulin, circulating epithelial cells, metastasis

Received: June 02, 2015 Accepted: November 25, 2015 Published: December 13, 2015

Abstract

Papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) accounts for about 80% of the cases in thyroid cancer. Routine surveillance by serum thyroglobulin (Tg) and medical imaging is the current practice to monitor disease progression of the patients. Whether enumeration of circulating epithelial cells (CECs) helps to define disease status of PTC patients was investigated. CECs were enriched from the peripheral blood of the healthy control subjects (G1, n = 17) and the patients at disease-free status (G2, n = 26) or with distant metastasis (G3, n = 22). The number of CECs expressing epithelial cell adhesion molecule (EpCAM) or thyroid-stimulating hormone receptor (TSHR) was determined by immunofluorescence microscopy analyses. The medium number of EpCAM+-CECs was 6 (interquartile range 1-11), 12 (interquartile range 7-16) and 91 (interquartile range 31-206) cells/ml of blood for G1, G2 and G3, respectively. EpCAM+-CEC counts were significantly higher in G3 than in G1 (p < 0.05) and G2 (p < 0.05). The medium number of TSHR+-CECs was 9 (interquartile range 3-13), 16 (interquartile range 10-24) and 100 (interquartile range 31-226) cells/ml of blood for G1, G2 and G3, respectively. The TSHR+-CEC counts also distinguished G3 from G1 (p < 0.05) and G2 (p < 0.05). With an appropriate cut off value of CEC count, the disease status for 97.9% (47/48) of the cases was clearly defined. Notably, the metastatic disease for all patients in G3 (22/22) was revealed by combined analysis of serum Tg and CEC. This study implicates that CEC testing can supplement the current standard methods for monitoring disease status of PTC.


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